Jealous
by wheneveryou'reready
Summary: How strange that we should think of jealousy as a sign of love. It's anything but a lovely feeling. It's dreadful, hideous and sickening. Though it 's true, even though she would never admit it, that it was jealousy that first made Lily Evans realised that maybe she didn't want to be just friend with James Potter after all.


**Disclaimer : This is a mostly introspection and very little action, you've been warned.  
Also, I don't own any of these characters.  
**

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Jealous

How strange that we should think of jealousy as a sign of love. It's anything but a lovely feeling. It's dreadful, hideous and sickening, Lily thought, as she sank into her armchair, her eyes hardening, staring at the very ostensibly happy couple snogging senselessly in front of her. One of them was the infamous James Potter, looking irritatingly cute with his glasses askew, his hair just as messy as usual. Lily hated him for that. She hated his tall, lanky feature, his infuriating unruly hair, most of all she hated his arms clumsily wrapped around the waist of his snogging-partner. Or maybe she hated _her_ , Virginia Helphrey, such a little miss perfect if you asked Lily, always so confident and so bloody nice with everybody, Lily hadn't quite realised how much she hated that before.

Maybe she hated herself, for thinking all of that, because it was so unlike her. She didn't _hate_ people, she was always polite, moderate and very seldomly wanted to rip someone's head off and feed it to a hippogriff. Though anyone would agree, she thought, that Potter's head needed a good trampling now and then, so maybe he could stop acting like such a bloody _git_. Then again, he always had this kind of talent to bring out the worst in her, it just seemed so ironic that he could anger her so much without even wanting to. And that's what hurt Lily the most: that he didn't even realise he was hurting her, that he couldn't possibly care less.

She averted her gaze, her face blank, willing herself not to cry, not to wince, not to show any kind of emotion, she wouldn't give them the pleasure, wouldn't humiliate herself even more. She didn't know if she was more angry with him or with herself, for letting this situation affect her so much. And it was even more embarrassing that Mary, who was seated just next to her, though trying hard to act as if she hadn't noticed the very noticeable couple, probably knew much more of what was going on in her friend's head than Lily would care to admit. To think that she _knew_ just how terrible Lily felt, without even having to see her face, and that she felt _sorry_ for her was unbearable. No one should have been able to tell how she felt because she shouldn't have felt this way, she couldn't possibly. She couldn't be jealous.

Why would she be? It wasn't as if she had any kind of interest in the sodding moron. She had made that point quite clear in the past. No, thank you. The thought of going out with him, of being his girlfriend was just preposterous, and slightly nauseating. Lily just couldn't think of James that way, and it wasn't even because she loathed him or thought him an arrogant show-off, now that they got along quite well and could even be considered as friendly, it was just that for Lily he would always remain just that, a friend, anything more was out of the question. Then why did she feel so miserable at the simple sight of him kissing that odious cow? Was she overtly possessive of her friend, or did she just disapprove of him stooping so low as to choose this shallow, hypocritical girl as his snogging partner? These were not very convincing hypothesis, but still Lily was sure of one thing, what she was feeling right now, whatever it was, wasn't jealousy. The idea itself was ridiculous. And Mary was _wrong_ , very wrong, if she thought she knew what Lily felt, if she thought she understood, because she didn't, and no one bloody could, not even Lily herself.

Unable to bear Mary's looks of pity and feeling she might get sick if she threw another glance at the now closely intricated couple, Lily got up, hoping to loose herself in the midst of the party. The Gryffindors were celebrating their third quidditch victory, which put them in a very good position for winning the cup, a remarkable feat which was to be attributed to the combativeness of their Captain, the very same James Potter who was now revelling his achievement in his own particular way. As she made her way, slightly stumbling, between the very noisy and inebriated students, holding cups of butterbeer and singing happily, she felt a bit out of tune. Luckily for Lily, her own gloominess went unnoticed in the clatter of the party, and no eyes, apart from Mary's, followed her as she stepped out of the portrait hole, not even the ones of the culprit, probably occupied elsewhere. Would Lily have wanted him to see her leave the party and go after her? She didn't know.

For the moment she was quite happy with being left alone. Pacing the empty and rather chilly corridors, she felt as if a numbness had lifted from her shoulder the moment she had left the warmth and ruckus of the Gryffindor common room. It was like all her internal senses had been put on mute and were suddenly rushing back to her conscience. Now she could feel the awful knot in her stomach, and the way her rib cage seemed compressed under an invisible mass. Taking deep and irregular gulps of air, as someone who has just resurfaced from the water, she felt her eyes prickling but she wouldn't let tears fall down, not even now that she was alone. She wasn't this type of girl, she wouldn't cry over a boy, even less one she had no bloody interest in. Besides, she didn't want to cry, she wanted to scream, to run, to hit something, anything really, as long as it made a satisfactory crushing noise so she could take all her anger out.

But at the time there wasn't any said object nearby, so she opted for plumping down the wall instead. She wished she could blame the alcohol for how dizzy she felt but sadly Lily never drank too much at parties. She always wanted to be in control, otherwise you could end up snogging who knows who, and look what good it did to Potter, she thought bitterly. Although it was true that the poor sod didn't seem as unhappy as he should be with his situation. What if he thought kissing Virginia Helphrey was nice? what if he rather wanted to do it again? what if the two of them started to date? How sickening that would be, Lily couldn't even start to ponder as the mere thought made her insides twist.

What made him think he could just start dating Virginia Helphrey if he wanted? How dared he do that to Lily? And most of all, why should she even care? It was maddening really. What was the most infuriating was the fact that she knew she didn't have any right to be angry with him. She didn't have any right to be jealous. Closing her eyes, Lily took a deep breath. Here it was. Finally the truth. She was bloody jealous, even though she had no right to be. She had made her choice, hadn't she? She had decided that Lily Evans and James Potter would never be a thing, decided to turn down the boy's affection. Why shouldn't he go and kiss other girls now? She should be happy that he was finally moving on, that's what she had always wanted, wasn't it?

And yet, here she was, slumped down a wall in an empty hallway, feeling more miserable than she ever recalled being. What a pitiful sight, she scowled, truly pathetic. She hated seeing herself like that, being _that_ girl. The one that weeps secretly while the object of her affection is happily enjoying himself with someone else, the one that's full of resentment and bitterness, the one whose feelings are not returned. Lily had never been in this position before, usually she was the one giving scornful looks and carelessly dispensing rejections, and just now she realised how lousy it was to be on the other side. It made her felt weak, vulnerable, and Lily didn't like to think of herself like that. All of it was bloody unfair. He had been the one always pursuing her with his affection, and now she was the one left alone in the dark, angry and a little bit heart-broken.

What was it that made it so hard for her to accept that James could want to go out with other girls? Come to think of it, it seemed a bit selfish of her, she couldn't at the same time say that she didn't love him and still want him to despair in his undying love for her. Maybe the only reason she liked him was because his continuous affection made her feel good about herself. Then what a terrible person she must be ! She though back to the time James and her had unexpectedly become friends, in the second part of sixth year. The way she was always a little bit astonished at how well they got along together, and always surprised when she discovered something new and amazing about this person she thought she had all figured out. The way he made her laught at the most inappropriate moment, and smile whenever he was around. Lily realised all of the sudden that she didn't want to loose all that, she was afraid of loosing it. She wanted to keep this strange, precarious and precious thing they had, wanted their relationship to be special. That was it. They had always be kind of special, hadn't they? even in the most disagreeable way, when they were all fighting and bickering and driving each other mad, and while Lily had always thought she was weary of that, she realised that she couldn't bear the idea that their relationship could be _normal_ , cordial, boring. She wouldn't let that happen.

At half past one in the morning in a deserted second floor corridor, Lily Evans decided that she wouldn't let James Potter become just a normal friend. And if he was to go out with other girls, she couldn't stand to be the nice and supportive friend, the kind James would reassure his girlfriend about : "who, Lily? Of course not darling, she's just a _friend_ ". No, thanks. She would rather go back to ignoring him and loathing him than just stand there and watch him slowly get over her. Thus she made the decision, as she got up angrily and headed back to her dormitory, that she would ignore the forgetful git for the time being. A solid week of silent treatment followed, which of course was really more of a punishment for Lily herself than for James, who couldn't figure out for the life of him what it was that made her suddenly so grumpy. After this failed attempt at ignoring the clueless idiot, she had no choice but to go to back to the old and proven method of yelling and arguing. It seemed that their precarious friendship was truly over, until their final reconciliation made it quite clear that they both wanted more than that, and, for the renewed tranquillity of half the castle, things went finally back to normal, although not the kind of "normal" Lily feared so much. No, this kind of normal was good, she thought, it felt like being home.

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 **So, that was my first ever written fanfiction, hope you enjoyed it ! Thought I'd put it here to get some advices from all of you experienced writers. Also, english isn't my native language, so I apologise for any mistakes I may have made, please help me correct them !**


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